WordPress Theme Development Tutorials and Resources

WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) in the world, powering over 25% of the public web. It is popular in part because it is free, easy to use, and easy to host. It is also relatively easy to develop for. Many web designers and developers have gotten their start by working on WordPress — and many have made a lucrative career out of it.

The structure of WordPress separates out content from design and functionality. Content is stored in a database, customized features are added with plugin-ins, and the design of a site is controlled by a theme.

If you want to design themes for WordPress, it helps to know some PHP, but the most important thing is HTML and CSS. In addition to basic coding skills, there are a number of WordPress-specific thing you'll need to learn in order to become a successful theme developer.

We've collected the best WordPress theme development tutorials, along with links to must-have tools, helpful resources, and a few great books. Here you'll find all the information you'll need to create your own designs for a WordPress site.

Tutorials

Theme Development is the official WordPress guide. This is the first thing you should read when you start thinking about creating your own theme.

Intermediate and Advanced Tutorials

These tutorials are not about theming in general, but about some particular aspect of theme development. Once you have a handle on the basic process of building a new theme, these will help you take your skills to the next level.

WordPress Theme Development Tools covers an under-explored aspect of WordPress theme development: setting up a sane development and test environment with the right tools.

Development Workflow Tools

If you are still using Notepad and an FTP client to make theme changes to a live site, you need to improve your WordPress development workflow. The place to start is with modern tooling.

Roots is a suite of WordPress development tools that provide a modern, integrated development experience. The tools include a webserver stack designed for easy deployment, a customized distribution of WordPress core that makes dependency management and version control easier, and a starter theme with baked-in best practices.

The Monster Widget lets you quickly enable all core widgets on a site, which is very helpful for testing theme design and layout.

Starter Themes and Theme Frameworks

You can build a new WordPress theme from scratch, but you'll spend a lot of time writing redundant code and reinventing the wheel. Most professional theme developers use a blank starter theme so that they can focus on the features that make their design unique.

Books on WordPress Theme Design

Digging into WordPress (2009–current), by Coyier and Starr, is the best book available if you want a deep understanding of how WordPress really works. It is updated continuously as each new version or patch is released, so you get the latest info in hard copy whenever you buy it, plus lifetime access to updated material online. If you are only going to buy one book on WordPress, this is the one to get.

WordPress Web Design For Dummies (2013), by Lisa Sabin-Wilson, is a great introduction to WordPress and theme development. This book is also really good for people who are working with WordPress theme developers and want to know what is possible, what they can ask for, and what might be too off-the-wall.

Summary

Creating new themes for WordPress is very rewarding, but it can also be hard work. There are a lot of moving parts, things to keep track of, and implementation details to remember. If you just open up the default theme and start messing with the code, you'll probably learn a lot — but you won't end up with a stable and maintainable theme that you can use on a public site or release in the Theme Directory.

However, if you follow the advice in these tutorials and use the tools listed above, you'll be able to create beautiful new themes and stay sane while doing it.

Further Reading and Resources

We have more guides, tutorials, and infographics related to WordPress: